Our politicians won’t protect us

The blatant exaggerations in the public statement made (12 April) by the Business Council of BC president needs response.

We have come to expect their commercial hype. Robert Trivers wrote a book subtitled “The logic of deceit and self-deception in human life.” One of his chapters “The biases of power” demonstrates that power corrupts our mental processes, and how power induces blindness toward others.

The statement from the Business Council that 80 per cent of Canadians support the Kinder Morgan pipeline is a perfect example. Are we Canadians to accept holus-bolus statements funded by billionaires from the U.S., that we will all suffer by refusing to back down to business demands?

Polls for decades have shown above 80 per cent support for protecting our Canadian environment from the ceaseless assault by “foreign investment.” There is no better example than the internationally condemned disaster in the tarsands.

Funds by “foreign investors” are nowhere to be seen when it comes to preserving and protecting Canadian waters like the Athabasca and Mackenzie River systems. The “foreign investors” who fund the Fraser Institute (which is afraid to publish all its donors); together with business mouthpieces from the chamber of commerce corporatespeak, show not a dime to protect Canadian wilderness and wildlife.

Yet their pundits endlessly promote consumption and sale of our resources without a thought to future Canadian needs. Should Canadians continue to listen uncritically to their self-inflation? No other western country will permit, never mind the flagrant public promotion of foreign ownership we allow in Canada. Their demands are never ending, from only one side of business — the profit takers.

These are the “foreigners” who claim their profits do not permit paying a living wage to Canadian employees; and whose investors are unwilling to pay taxes in Canada. God save us, our politicians won’t.

Don Ryane

Lethbridge